


Thornbound

by amarthe



Category: Dappervolk (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Heavy Angst, Manipulation, Trauma, glume is herself
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:33:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25267648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amarthe/pseuds/amarthe
Summary: A Galactic awakens on the bone-littered dirt of the Veil of Vines. He cannot remember his life before this very moment, but he knows there is more to it than this. As he attempts to remember and make sense of where he is, a certain witch decides that he would be better off under her tutelage. What will he remember of his previous life, the world he is now so far from? Will he manage to pick up the pieces and flee from Three's Forest, or will they be scattered, forever out of reach? Until then, Judas remains Glume's thornbound apprentice.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	1. Upon the Charnel Ground

As he stirred from unconsciousness, he knew by the scent surrounding him that something was not right. His back was pressed against a cool, rich dirt. It smelled of over-fermented fruit; the stench of decay, sweet and sticky, clung to this land. Rolling onto his side, Judas realized the forested floor around him was littered with tiny white fragments of something. He picked up one of these shards, turning it over in his hand. It was a crushed fragment of bone. As he sat up, his pale, galaxy-painted palms sank into the dampened soil. It was then that he noticed the tar-black vines which overtook the forest he’d found himself in, consuming the foliage in tightly-bound layers which were taught like a fisherman’s net over his catch. They bound the land, staking their claim as they choked trees and ran the fauna from their homes.

He turned his pale eyes skyward, pupiless and pale, reminiscent of the single moon that hung in the sky above. Its rays just barely reached him through the thicket and corrupted growth. The celestial body felt colder, more still than the trinity of moons that had watched over his homeland. Judas rubbed his eyes, which gave off a subtle glow, and as he did he realized that with every passing second he remembered less and less of his home world and the life he’d lived before finding himself on a charnel forest floor. He sat, mind reeling, on the bone-stippled dirt as he desperately grasped for memories which fell past his fingertips like grains of sand, or ground bone. He was lost, and alone, and confused, and this chilled him to his cosmic core, and that is when a feminine voice, as dark as the ground around him, snared the last of his memories from him.

“Another world-hopper haplessly fallen in my domain?” The voice purred, pronouncing each word as though it had been practiced and recited countless times before. 

The source of the voice revealed herself, stepping into the clearing Judas had awoken in. A woman whose skin wore the pallor of a corpse emerged from the vines, which seemed to bow out of her path as she approached. She wore layers of dark, knit clothing that had been haphazardly adorned with bones, and the same wicked-looking vines that seemed to haunt this forest circled her legs, forming themselves into two flat-soled boots at her feet. The vines she wore made their way up her body, fashioned into pauldrons upon her shoulders, and fastening lace around her head into a white veil, which contrasted with the dark purple waves of her hair that fell just past her hips. Most intriguing, however, was the black flower blossom positioned so that it concealed her right eye. Her gaze was scrutinizing enough with just the one eye to look at him, and Judas imagined if she still had both maroon eyes to glare at him with, he’d wilt and become one with the dirt then and there.

He scrambled to his feet, seeing no reason to stay and chat with this horrifying woman. He was confused enough as it were, and didn’t want to remain in the company of a woman that looked as though she wanted to turn him into fertilizer. As he took off into the vine-torn forest, he felt something sharp wrap itself around his ankle, and he fell to the ground, having only made a few feet of progress away from the death-clad woman. Trying to pull his foot from the grasp around it only tore at his flesh, and he turned to look at the woman, who was now leaning over him, a smirk on her black-painted lips. He did not try to wrestle free from the vine’s death grip, nor did he scratch at the soil for purchase. Muscle memory from a life he no longer lived took over, and he grappled for the dagger he always kept on his thigh, only to find it absent. Failing that, he lunged for her, a clawed hand raking across her exposed leg. The thorned vine that wrapped around his left ankle clenched tighter, and from the ground more vines sprouted, wrapping themselves around his body as they effectively chained him to the ground. A deep purple liquid beaded from the three shallow cuts Judas had made on her skin, and he ground his teeth as they mended before his eyes. 

“Oh, a fighter are we?” The woman mocked, “At least that’s moderately more interesting than most of your kind.” 

“What is this place? Who are you?” Judas hissed, his breathing shallow from the constriction of the vines circling themselves around his rib cage.

“I am Glume, the witch of this place that I call The Veil of Vines. You needn’t tell me your name, world-hopper, as soon enough you will be known solely as either my apprentice, or the dust beneath my feet. It is your choice. I suggest you come to a decision before the breath is pressed from your lungs.” Her sentence was punctuated by the vines around his chest tightening further. 

He barely managed to croak out a grunt of acceptance, wanting to follow with more words, questions, pleas, anything to better understand the situation he found himself in or to get himself out of it, but instead the vines wound around his torso constricted further until he was out of breath entirely. Had she lied, given him false hope in his last moments as a sick joke? His vision swam, the moonlight illuminating the forest dimmed, and soon enough, he found himself unconscious again.


	2. Chokeweed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A task, a jar with something wicked and writhing, and those same brown eyes full of worry looking at him from the back of his mind. That is what swims in Judas' mind as he is pulled further under Glume's control. He never had a choice to begin with.

When he awoke, he was in yet another unfamiliar place. The ground was softer here, and as he opened his eyes he learned it wasn't soil like he had found himself laying on prior, rather it was a heap of miscellaneous cloth. Some were clearly hand-knotted, the stitching chunky and uneven, clearly the work of an amateur. Others were delicate scraps of lace, silk, and linen. The one thing the mismatched pile had in common was the dark tone they were all dyed. Around him, the bewitched vines of a woman known as Glume twisted up from the floor into a canopy, almost like a tent that surrounded him but for a hole approximately the size of a doorway. Judas rubbed his eyes, a groan escaping his blue lips as the ache that cradled his lithe frame became more apparent in his now-conscious mind. It was concentrated most in his ribs, and for a moment he worried they had been cracked, but when he moved to a seated position on the fabric heap pretending to be a bed and was not immediately in agony, he figured the worst damage his ribcage had faced was bruising. 

Judas' dreams had not been kind, either. He yearned for a life he could barely grasp at. The three-mooned sky hung above him, as infinite as it was starless, suns of distant worlds obscured by the light pollution of a city whose name he couldn't recall. A hand held his, warm blood pulsing through the veins of a lover, but when he tried to look at their face, he could only see their eyes. They were animalistic and plagued by worry, but for what? For him? For the both of them? He sat there for a bit, wondering what he was supposed to do now. While he had agreed to the witch's terms, he hadn't much of a choice in the matter and wouldn't feel guilty about making a run for it then and there. The events leading up to his unconsciousness replayed in his mind. It was apparent that she controlled the vines, and in a way it also seemed as though she was able to sense the world through them as well. Perhaps if he tried to run, the vines would feel the vibrations of his footsteps through their hypogean roots, and this time there would be no question of what Glume had in store for the world-hopper. It wasn't worth the risk. If he bit his tongue and kept his head down long enough, he hoped to earn his freedom back. 

The familiar voice of a certain witch disturbed him from his thoughts. Glume beckoned him to wherever she was, and as Judas stood to follow, pain twisted the ankle her vines had snared him by. He hissed through his teeth, shifting the weight to his opposite leg as he looked down at the injury. Her vines had torn through his stocking and into his skin, and of course, she hadn't bothered to tend to it while he was out. The skin around his whole limb was reddened, but as his focus drifted closer to the puncture wounds the thorns had dealt, he realized the light-freckled skin gradually became more purple-tinged, like some awful rash. He brushed a hand over the afflicted area, but unlike his expectations it wasn't swollen and hot. No, the area was as cold as the soil he'd woken up on when this all began, and he lacked sensation, at least on the surface of his flesh. Given the pain he felt while walking on it, the nerves in his muscles were at least still functioning properly. Glume crooned for him once more, and he clenched his teeth as he hobbled from the brier-made tent. 

Making his way to the more structured tent outside his, he slowly pushed his way through the waxed-cloth flap and into the foyer of Glume’s abode. There the witch sat on a chair composed of the same vines that had overtaken the forest, although these vines were of a lighter color, having been severed from the rest some time ago and left to dry. As Judas gazed around the interior of the tent, he found all of the furniture to be constructed in the same way. She appeared to hold complete power over the vines, able to twist them into any shape she wanted or needed. A snare to catch him, a canopy to cover him, there seemed to be no limit to what the witch could do. Judas stood in the threshold, Glume remaining seated as she thumbed carelessly through a book, the title of which was in a language Judas could not recognize. 

“Now that you’ve awoken, I have a task for you.” The witch interrupted the silence, dog-earing the corner of a page and setting it aside. “Within this forest are two others. They call themselves witches, but their power pales in comparison to mine. However, their workings are impeding my own progress, and I need them eliminated.”

Judas remained at the threshold, silent and still as a stone. Glume rose from her seat, meandering over to a cluttered shelf as she continued. 

“Subsequently, I have decided to place a curse upon them. The details of this are too extensive for someone like you to understand, so I won’t bother trying to explain them to you. What is important is that you get me something from each of them.” she explained, retrieving a clay jar from the second-lowest shelf. As she removed it, the shelf wobbled unsteadily. Heaving the jar onto the nearby table, she gestured for Judas to approach. The galactic did as he was asked, his uncertainty growing with each step forward. In the mouth of the jar was a large cork, visibly aged. It had without a doubt seen better days, and was degraded to the extent that it was nearly useless. As Glume pried it from the jar’s mouth, pieces of it crumbled into the jar itself and all around the vine-constructed table. The scent that wafted from the jar was reminiscent of the way the air smells in a wetland, humid and full of plant matter both growing and decaying.

“Ideally, it’d be something more personal to them. An article of clothing, a lock of hair. But I can tell from how you carry yourself that you’re far from charming enough to secure that for me. Don’t worry, we’ll get there. In the meantime, some of those glowing mushrooms from Mycel and yellow flowers from Barclay will do just fine.” As she continued to speak, she rolled up her sleeve, plunging her hand into the jar. From the sounds of it, the contents inside were wet. Judas was listening to her instructions, but he was not present, and once again his legs felt compelled to turn and run. But he knew the consequences of that, so he did not. 

“Barclay and Mycel are south and east from here, respectively. Where my vines thin out, you should be able to find them easily. There’s no need to speak to them, but if you run into either of them try to be at least a little intimidating. As you are affiliated with me, I don’t want to be embarrassed.” Glume fished something from the jar as she spoke. It was not unlike the vines she commanded, but it was different nonetheless. It was the same color, although it was less like a vine and more like several long blades of grass braided together. The braid naturally formed itself into a coil, which Glume stretched out between her two hands. A thin, dark liquid dripped from it.

“Hold still.” The witch ordered, and although every part of his mind begged him to do anything but, Judas obeyed. She wrapped the strange braid around his neck before letting it go. The cold wetness of the plant felt strange around the delicate skin of his neck. It wound itself around his throat like a necklace, tightening just on the edge of discomfort. The dark liquid ran down his bare chest, and it was then that he realized just how unnaturally cold it was. He shivered, his hands traveling up to feel the thing that had wrapped itself around his neck. It was slimy to the touch and thoroughly unpleasant in every way. Judas felt the same strange coolness in his fingertips, brushing the liquid off of them and onto his dark shorts. The coldness lingered, but was dulled. What was this?

“Of course, I couldn’t let some worldhopper just wander out of my territory unattended to. And I couldn’t accompany you myself, either. Just as my vines allow me to see the goings-on of my Vale, so too do the mushrooms and flowers of the other witches. I’m just not in the mood for that. What’s coiling and writhing around your neck right now is something I like to call a chokeweed. I’ve created them myself. If you try to leave Three’s Forest, it will constrict around your neck until you either pass out, or it crushes your windpipe. Likewise if you don’t return to me within a day’s time. It’s in your best interest to get what I need in a timely manner, little worldhopper.” 

As if Judas wasn’t panicking enough already, the gravity of his situation truly fell upon him then and there. Up until this point, everything that had happened since he woke up on the forest floor had felt like a nightmare. One he’d surely wake up from, eventually. But no. There would be no waking up from this. The cold thing wrapped around his neck writhed with a life of its own, animated by Glume’s cruel power, pressing on his neck and threatening to end his life within a day’s time. Dread pooled in his guts, and he found himself trembling. He was brought back to the restless dreams he’d had while collapsed on the heap of fabric in his makeshift tent. Those eyes, as big and round and brown as they were worried peered at him from the depths of his mind. The kiss of lips on his star-freckled cheek. That soft hand in his. Judas still did not know the name of this lover from another life, another world. He did not know if they were alive, or if they were real at all. But in that moment, he knew he would have no choice but to press on, or his lover and that which they shared between them wouldn’t even exist as a memory.


End file.
